AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Finally he looked at her. “I’ll do that, Lainey. And I apologize for not getting back to you. I’ve spoken to Stevens. What he did was wrong, and I made sure he knows it.”
“Thank you, Sheriff.” She studied his face, seeing only remorse for the way his deputy had acted. “Please let me know what you find.”
“I’ll do that, Lainey.” He hesitated, then added, “I should have called you earlier. To tell you we found a vagrant in the compound when we were investigating the fire. He’d been there for a while, apparently. Eating food he’d found in the kitchen and hiding in the buildings. He swore he didn’t start the fire, but I’m keeping an eye on him. He’s in town, living at the homeless shelter.”
She studies the sheriff for a long moment, then nodded. “Thanks for letting me know. It seems unlikely he’d start the fire if he was relying on the mess hall for food, but you never know.”
“Yeah. People behave in odd ways sometimes.”
She walked out of the house, his gaze burning into her back as she hurried to her car. Was the sheriff talking about her? Behaving strangely?
As she drove away, she glanced over her shoulder and saw Jacobs watching her. Did he still think she was the one who’d killed Ron? It would make things tidy for the sheriff if she were the killer. He could wrap up the case quickly and easily, without spending a lot of the department’s resources.
She wondered if he’d even bothered to follow up on the woman Brody had met outside the compound. Mel.
She glanced in the mirror again. Jacobs still stood on her front porch, watching her drive away.
Late that afternoon, after returning to her house to ensure everything was locked up tight, she nailed a small piece of wood over the broken window in the back door and headed out of Helena toward Brody’s ranch. Despite the break-in, it had been a good day. The appointment she’d had after lunch had been a prospective client, and after talking for a while, the woman had asked Lainey to take over her accounting.
And she’d stood up to Sheriff Jacobs. The day of the fire, the day they’d found Ron’s body, she’d been too shocked to confront Jacobs.
Not anymore. She’d gotten her mojo back.
As she drove toward Brody’s ranch, she relaxed into her seat. She was excited to tell him about her new client. Eager to discuss the break-in with him.
Her growing anticipation of seeing Brody set warning bells jangling in her head. Wasn’t she supposed to be figuring out where she’d gone wrong with Ron? Why she’d… drifted instead of standing up to him?
She had to understand those questions or she couldn’t start something with Brody. If she didn’t, she’d make the same mistakes over again. She wasn’t afraid that Brody would beat her, but in order to have a good relationship, she needed to banish all her ghosts.
As she drove past the compound, she glanced out the window at the remaining structures. In the golden early evening light, she spotted a flash of movement along the side of one of the buildings.
Slamming on her brakes, she drove onto the shoulder. But she made sure her doors were locked and kept the car running. A small figure darted from one building to the next and disappeared.
Lainey grabbed her phone. She started to dial the sheriff’s office, then hesitated. The person she’d seen was short. Thin. A teen, maybe.
Instead of calling the sheriff, she dialed Brody. When he answered, she said, “I just saw someone running through the compound. Didn’t get a good look, but it might have been a kid.”
“Stay in your car,” he said immediately. “I’m on my way. We’ll look together.” His unspoken words hung in the air -- ‘remember what happened last time you went into the compound’.
Lainey shifted in her seat so she could watch, but she saw nothing in the five minutes it took for her to hear the distinctive rumble of Brody’s truck approaching.
* * *
Brody gripped the steering wheel tightly, his fingers aching. Lainey was a smart woman. Surely she wouldn’t go dashing into the compound by herself, looking for a child in the maze of empty buildings and the burned out shells of other ones.
But he knew her soft heart. If she thought a child needed help, she’d dash into trouble in a heartbeat.
Time stretched out too long, making him antsy. Restless. He pressed the accelerator harder, but eased back when the truck skidded going around a curve. Finally he spotted Lainey’s car along the side of the road.
She was already out of her car by the time he reached her. “Thank God,” he said. “I was afraid you’d go in there alone if you thought a child needed help.”
“I thought about it,” she admitted. “But I knew you’d get here quickly, so I waited. And the person I saw was running. It wasn’t like he or she was obviously injured.”
She slung her purse over her shoulder so it was secured across her body, then she started across the road. He trotted to catch up with her and took her hand. To keep her close, he told himself.
But it was mostly for the comfort of twining his fingers with her. Of feeling her palm against his.
After they passed the fence and the long garage, he asked in a low voice, “Where did you see him last?”
